1) Field of the Disclosure
The disclosure relates generally to store stowage and deployment systems and methods, and more particularly, to externally mounted store stowage and deployment systems and methods for use on aerial vehicles, such as stealth and military aircraft.
2) Description of Related Art
Store stowage and deployment systems are commonly used on stealth and military aircraft to carry and release missiles, bombs, and other weapons and materials, generally referred to as “stores”. Such store stowage and deployment systems are typically mounted on an underside of the aircraft, such as on a wing pylon or within a fuselage bay.
A primary mission of stealth aircraft is typically to perform a mission, such as deploying stores, while avoiding a target's sensors, such as radar. Known stealth aircraft exist that internally stow mission stores within the aircraft in order to minimize a radar signature. However, internal carriage of stores occupies valuable aircraft volume and leads to design compromises that may affect the aircraft's performance characteristics. For example, volume reserved for internal stores may displace or reduce space for fuel, engines, avionics, or other subsystems. The design tradeoffs that result may have an impact on the aircraft performance, for example, reduced range, acceleration, and top speed. The resultant payload of the stealth aircraft may be significantly less than comparable external carriage aircraft. The stealth characteristics of an aircraft may only be needed in the presence of air defenses. Once the air defenses are neutralized, internal carriage of stores may no longer be needed and use of the stealth aircraft may be reduced in favor of higher payload, external carriage aircraft. Moreover, known internal stores or weapons bays may require a design as part of a new aircraft as it may be difficult to retrofit such internal stores or weapons bay or carriage onto an existing aircraft.
Known external store carriage systems exist for use with military aerial vehicles, such as combat aircraft, attack helicopters, and the like. However, like radar signature, such known external store carriage systems may create negative effects on the aerodynamic performance of the military aerial vehicles due to increased aerodynamic drag.
Moreover, such known external store carriage systems may be designed for a specific internal store configuration or loadout and changing the desired internal store configuration or loadout means changing to a structurally and/or mechanically different external store carriage system or structure. Finally, the internal configuration and door opening mechanisms of known external store carriage systems may not provide sufficient clearance for a store to be separately ejected without interference from the other stores if a store ejector device fails to deploy a store or there is a some other problem with a store deploying.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art for externally mounted, internally configurable store stowage and deployment devices, systems and methods that provide advantages over known devices, systems and methods.